And this matters because?

Because it is a part of our vocabulary. And you, mom and dad, are going to have to finally learn the language because as The Breakfast Club's school administrator Richard Vernon notes, "When I get old, these kids are going to be taking care of me!" Or else perhaps the janitor's response will be more true: "Don't count on it."

The Breakfast Club takes a shot and wins the prize. The shot, though, is directed not just at parents in a timeless adolescent rebellion but at our parents in particular, who lost their countercultural edge in all its idealism but maintained a strong sense of "do your own thing." The Breakfast Clubbers use the icons of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll; they co-opt the "you can't trust anyone over 30" attitude once held by their hypocritical parents. They indulge in group therapy and all the other "grown-up" things, and it all points to the inevitable conclusion voiced by Allison: "When you grow up, your heart dies."

"The only culture that exists in [Hughes's] films is a white, suburban adolescent one-the films treat with contempt an absurd adult and parental world-and Hughes seems to be able to enter totally and unselfconsciously into a world of teenage mating rite, dress codes, and argot (e.g., 'asswipe,' 'geek')" (Quart 163). So we could fault The Breakfast Club and other films for leaving out a large segment of the population of our generation, but what he portrays so rings true that we can, in a sense, assume the rest.

And so Holtz lists as the iconic "anxiety of youth film," compare to The Breakfast Club third on the "top 10 movies that have come the closest to depicting life as people our age know it," following Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Hughes's Sixteen Candles. "ya got your basic nerd, jock, outlaw, priss, and pariah-and by the end everyone's smooching. This was 'our movie' at the time, and while the boomers tried to pooh-pooh it by calling it 'the little chill,' we knew it was cooler. And I thought ally sheedy was prettier before molly ringwald gussied her up" (Howe 186).

Williams is right about the elder reviewers and he also reflects the trend of the Breakfast Clubbers to read against the grain. The Breakfast Club may have "seminal, awe-inducing brilliance" in the realm of teen movies, but its power comes from the interpretation we give it(Look What the Cat Dragged In).

Allison is a symbol for us all, in a sense-we're not what you want us to be, but what we are might be better.